did concur. And secondly, for the command to the young man, it was merely personal, and indeed not so much intending obedience to the letter of the precept, as trial of the sincerity of the man's former profession, and conviction of him touching those mispersuasions and self-deceits which made him trust in himself for righteousness; like that of God to \ Abraham, to offer up his son, which was not intended for death to Isaac, but for trial to Abraham, and for manifestation of his faith. It may be farther objected, How can we be holy, as Christ is holy? First, the thing is impossible; and secondly, if we could, there would be no need of Christ: if we were bound to be so holy, righteousness would come by the law of works. To this I answer, The law is not nullified, nor curtailed by the mercy of Christ; we are as fully bound to the obedience of it as Adam was, though not upon such bad terms, and evil consequences as he; under danger of contracting sin, though not under danger of incurring death. So much as any justified person comes short of complete and universal obedience to the law, so much he sinneth, as Adam did, though God be pleased to pardon that sin by the merit of Christ. Christ came to deliver from sin, but not to privilege any man to commit it: though he came to be a curse for sin, yet came he not to be a cloak for sin. Secondly, Christ is needful in two respects: First, because we cannot come to full and perfect obedience, and so his grace is requisite to pardon and cover our failings: Secondly, because that which we do attain unto, is not of or from ourselves, and so his Spirit is requisite to strengthen us unto his service. Thirdly, when the Scripture requires us to be holy and perfect, as Christ and God, by as we understand not equality in the compass, but quality in the truth of our holiness: as when the apostle saith, "That we must love our neighbour as ourselves," the meaning is not that our love to our neighbour should be mathematically equal to the love of ourselves for the law doth allow of degrees in love, according to the degrees of relation and nearness in the thing loved: "Do good unto all men, especially those of the household of faith." Love to a friend may safely be greater : than to a stranger; and to a wife or child, than to a friend: yet in all, our love to others must be of the self-same nature, as true, real, cordial, sincere, solid, as that to ourselves. We must love our neighbour as we do ourselves; that is, unfeignedly, and without dissimulation. Let us further consider the grounds of this point touching the conformity, which is between the nature and spiritual life of Christians and of Christ; because it is a doctrine of principal consequence. First, this was one of the ends of Christ's coming. Two purposes he came for; a restitution of us to our interest in salvation, and a restoring our original qualities of holiness unto us. He came to sanctify and cleanse the church, that it should be holy and without blemish; unblameable, and unreprovable to his sight: to redeem, and to purify his people. The one is the work of his merit, which goeth upward to the satisfaction of his Father; the other, the work of his Spirit and grace, which goeth downward to the sanctification of his Church. In the one, he bestoweth his righteousness upon us by imputation; in the other, he fashioneth his image in us by renovation. That man then hath no claim to the payment Christ hath made, nor to the inheritance he hath purchased, who hath not the life of Christ fashioned in his nature and conversation. But if Christ be not only a Saviour to redeem, but a rule to sanctify, what use and service is left unto the law? I answer, that the law is still a rule, but not a comfortable, effectual, delightful rule without Christ applying, and sweetening it unto us. The law only comes with commands; but Christ with strength, love, willingness, and life to obey them. The law alone comes like a schoolmaster with a scourge, a curse along with it; but when Christ comes with the law, he comes as a father, with precepts to teach, and with compassions to spare. The law is a lion, and Christ our Sampson that slew the lion: as long as the law is alone, so long it is alive, and comes with terror and fury upon every soul it meets: but when Christ hath slain the law, taken away that which was the strength of it, namely, the guilt of sin, then there is honey in the lion, sweetness in the Eph. v. 6. Col. i. 22. Tit. ii. 14. duties required by the law. It is then an easy yoke3, and a law of liberty", the commandments are not then grievousi; but the heart delighteth in them, and loveth them, even as the honey and the honey-comb. Of itself it is the cord of a judge', which bindeth hand and foot, and shackleth unto condemnation; but by Christ it is made the cord of a man ", and the band of love, by which he teacheth us to go, even as a nurse her infant. Secondly, Holiness must needs consist in a conformity unto Christ, if we consider the nature of it. We are then sanctified, when we are re-endued with that image of God, after which we were at first created. Some have conceived, that we are therefore said to be created after God's image, because we were made after the image of Christ, who was to come: but that is contradicted by the apostle, who saith, that Adam was the figure of Christ, and not Christ the pattern of Adam; yet that created holiness is renewed in us after the image of Christ. As we have borne the image of the earthly Adam", who was taken out of the earth, an image of sin, and guilt; so we must bear the image of the heavenly Adam, who is the Lord from Heaven, an image of life and holiness. "We were predestinated," saith the apostle ", "to be conformed unto the image of the Son:" conformed in his nature, holiness; in his end, happiness; and in the way thereunto, sufferings. "We all," saith he, "beholding with open face, as in a glass;" that is, in Christ, or in the face of Christ, "the glory of God, are changed into the same image with Christ," (he the image of his Father, and we of him) "from glory to glory," that is, either from glory inchoate in obedience and grace here (for the saints in their very sufferings, are glorious and conformable to the glory of Christ: "the spirit of glory is upon you in your reproaches for Christ") unto glory consummate in Heaven, and salvation hereafter: or, "from glory to glory," that is, grace for g Mat. xi. 30, h James i. 25. i 1 John v. 3. k Ut non sit terribile, sed suave mandatum. Aug. cont. Pelag. & Celest. lib. 1. cap. xiii.-Ut innotescat quod latebat, et suave fiat quod non delectabat, gratia Dei est, quæ hominum adjuvat voluntates. Aug. de peccat. merit. et remis. 1. 2. c. xvii. xxii. 13. m Hos. xi. 4. Ad imaginem Christi futuri, non tantum Dei opus erat, sed pignus. Tertul. de Resur. Christi, cap. 6. xv. 45. 1 Cor. xv. 49. P Rom. viii. 29. 1 Matt. n Rom. v. 14. o 1 Cor. 42 Cor. iii. 18. & iv. 6, grace; the glorious image of God's holiness in Christ fash-ioning and producing itself in the hearts of the faithful, as an image or species of light, shining on a glass, doth from thence fashion itself on the wall, or in another glass. Holiness is the image of God. Now in an image there are two things required: first, a similitude of one thing unto another : secondly, a deduction, derivation, impression of that similitude upon the one from the other, and with relation thereunto. For though there be the similitude of snow in milk, yet the one is not the image of the other. Now then when an image is universally lost, that no man living can furnish his neighbour with it, to draw from thence another for himself, there must be recourse to the prototype and original, or else it cannot be had. Now in Adam there was a universal obliteration of God's holy image, out of himself and his posterity. Unto God therefore himself, we must have recourse, to repair this image again. But how can this be? The apostle tells us that he is an inaccessible, an unapproachable God; no man can draw near him, but he will be licked up and devoured like the stubble in the fire; and yet, if a man could come near him (as, in some sense, he is "not far from every one of us ;") yet he is an invisible God; no man can see him and live; no man can have a view of his face, to new draw it again. We are all, by sin, come short of his glory" as impossible it is for any man to become holy again, as it is to see that which is invisible, or to approach unto that which is inaccessible: except the Lord be pleased, through some veil or other, to exhibit his image again unto us, and through some glass to let it shine upon us, we shall be everlastingly destitute of it. And this he hath been pleased to do through the veil of Christ's flesh "; God was manifest in the flesh; in that flesh he was made visible; and we have an access into the holiest of all through the veil, that is to say, Christ's flesh; in that flesh he was made accessible. By him, saith the apostle, we have an access unto the Father: he was the image of the invisible God: he that hath seen him, hath seen the Father. For as God was in him reconciling the world unto himself, so 1 Tim. vi. 16. w Heb. x. 20. t Acts xvii. 27. v1 Tim. i. 17. u Rom. iii. 23. * Col. i. 15. was he in him revealing himself unto the world. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him." Thirdly, Consider the quality of the mystical body. It is a true rule", That that which is first and best in any kind, is the rule and measure of all the rest: and therefore Christ being the first and chiefest member in the Church, he is to be the ground of conformity to the rest. And there is indeed a mutual suitableness between the head and the members-Christ, by compassion conformable to his members in their infirmity ("We have not an high priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities b"); and the members, by communion conformable to Christ in his sanctity: both he that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are of one. Fourthly, Holiness in the Scripture is called an unction. All the vessels of the tabernacle were sanctified by that holy unction, which was prescribed Moses. "Ye have received an ointment," saith St. John, "which teacheth you all things." It is an ointment which healeth our wounds, and cleanseth our nature, and mollifieth our consciences, and openeth our eyes, and consecrateth our persons unto royal, sacred, and peculiar services. Now though Christ were anointed with this holy oil above his fellows, yet not without his fellows; but all they are by his unction sanctified. Light is principally in the sun, and sap in the root, and water in the fountain; yet there is a derivation, a conformity in the beam, branches, and streams, to their originals: only here is the difference; in Christ there is a fuluess, in us only à measure; and in Christ there is a pureness, but in us a mixture. Fifthly and lastly, Christ is the sum of the whole Scriptures; and therefore necessarily the rule of holiness. For the Scripture is profitable to make a man perfect', and to furnish him unto all good works. St. Paul professeth, that he withheld nothing which was profitable, but delivered the whole council of God: and yet elsewhere we find the sum |